


a thousand ways to fall in love

by WhenIWasAYoungBoy



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIWasAYoungBoy/pseuds/WhenIWasAYoungBoy
Summary: the three loves of elizabeth harmon‘s life
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Beth Harmon/D. L. Townes, Harry Beltik/Beth Harmon
Comments: 16
Kudos: 147





	a thousand ways to fall in love

she loved townes, first. townes who watched her play game after game, townes who smiled when she beat him. he took her picture the next time she saw him. she was sitting, standing, kneeling in his hotel room. lent over a chess board, looking up at him through her lashes, leaning back in a soft chair. he seemed mesmerised by her hands, her eyes, her lips and she was as equally caught up in him as he was in her. and then they were interrupted in that hotel room and then the time was wrong and wrong and wrong. 

harry was next. harry beltik who was so so good, just not as good as her. he smiled too, when she won, and she remembers smiling back. and then her mother is dead and she is alone and when she picks up the telephone he is on the other end. he teaches her, goes over what he knows, what she knows, and they live and love and learn. but he knows he‘s second to chess and he has a bottle of pills in his hands as he begs her to look after herself. and, the scene is repeated again, in the parking lot of that school as he tells her to stop stop  _ stop _ .

she loved benny too, for all that she didn‘t expect to. he was condescending and arrogant and better than her. he beat her the first time they played, and the second and every time after that. but he was charming too, and funny and witty and he talked her into round after round after round of speed chess. but then she played him the next day, properly, and won and he was all smiles as he bought her a drink (and then another and another and that‘s when the smile began to slip). he invited her to new york and she lived in his dark basement apartment on a shitty mattress she had to blow up every evening, living on eggs and coffee and playing chess, over and over. always chess. he taught her everything he knew, like harry did, like townes might have done. and then she‘s in his bed and it‘s the beginning of the end. it‘s not sudden, it‘s a slow, stuttering death. she goes home alone after paris and she drinks and drinks and drinks and then she calls him and then gets high and then she calls him and then she‘s alone.

(and then she flies alone to moscow. alone and sober and she  _ wins.  _ and townes is there, yes, but so is harry and benny and even matt and mike. it‘s not full circle and it‘s not forgiveness but it’s also not an ending and she‘s also not alone. she‘s tired of being alone.)

**Author's Note:**

> I binged the whole show last night and it is a _travesty_ that there is literally only one other fic for it
> 
> [tumblr](http://chiapet4357.tumblr.com/)   
>  [twitter](http://twitter.com/chiapet4357/)


End file.
